Dead Man Walking
by lsq78
Summary: In 2157, 133 years after the Ceph War, humanity makes contact with aliens again. And finds itself needing the help of one particular soldier, trapped in his Nanosuit 2.0 and stored in cryo.
1. Prologue: Waking Up

**A/N: Okay I finally got onto writing my own crossover for Mass effect/Crysis. Just so you know, I'm heavily basing it on Peter Watt's novel "Crysis Legion" (awesome novelization of Crysis 2), and the universe is quite heavily AU. Oh, and also i'm not a native english speaker, so please inform me of any grammatical error.**

I knew it.

I knew someday they would have to pull me out of cryo. After all, if they put me in cryo in the first place, it was because they were afraid they might need poor ol' Alky again, wasn't it? Otherwise, they would have just found a convenient way to… Dispose of me. Us. Whatever. Me, the suit, and Prophet's leftovers.

Now, as the ice slowly melted around me and the suit was rattling off its checklist, I was left wondering what spooked them out to the point that they felt the need to pull me out from my bottle of formol. Not that I wondered for long, anyway, what with the enhanced brain capacities offered by SECOND and its artificial neural network, and those nanorobots made of protein screwing around with my own fleshy neurons. After all, there was really only one reason they would need me. Somehow, Humanity made it to the stars. And inevitably, they stumbled on more Cephs. Or worse, those that created them. And it made them crap their pants so much that they suddenly remembered that they just had someone (Or was it something now? This subject is kind of blurry.) that had a lot of experience dealing with them.

I was at this point when they realized that I was conscious. And a nurse (Well at least she looked like a nurse, young and good looking along with the white lab coat.) quickly ran at me. She seemed slightly wary of me and stopped a few feet from the cryotube I was in. I couldn't blame her, after all since I bonded with the N2.0 I was a living, breathing killing machine. Well, no, scratch that. The suit took over the respiratory and circulating functions of my flesh body a long time ago. Let's just say I'm a killing machine, with an emphasis on _machine_.

"Can you hear me, corporal Rodriguez?"

And she calls me with my former human name and rank! She mustn't have received the memo informing her of my condition. "Of course I can", came my synthesized, Prophet-like voice. "Incidentally, I can even hear Dr. Kasparov –that's his name right?- discussing about me with his assistant in the next room, as well as the beating of your heart. And from it and a dozen other signs such as your body temperature, skin conductivity and eye saccades, I can even tell that you are not feeling too comfortable in my presence. Now if you would be kind enough to call the good Doctor so we can be done with the procedures…"

That shut her up. Mouth wide open and all. She immediately turned and practically ran to the next room, while the two armed guards present in the room tensed up instantaneously, which granted me a "THREAT DETECTED" from SECOND and a neat targeting reticule on them on my HUD. Speaking of them, they had a strange getup too. Apparently, in whatever time I woke up, skintight body armor was all the rage. And weapons didn't use bullets anymore. Interesting. The doctor came hurriedly in the room, as I got up for the first time in God-knows-how-long. Tall, about 50 years old, bald, and a serious look on his face. Overall, he looked more like a military man than your average physician, but that wasn't too surprising.

"Well, welcome to the future corporal. How are you feeling?"

Sharp and to the point. My initial evaluation of him was correct.

"Not too bad, considering I…" I checked up my Carbon 14 level with SECOND. "…spent 133 years in the fridge. All things considered, I think I'm a very healthy walking corpse. But I guess you are more concerned with the state of the suit. Then be reassured. Everything reads 100%." That got him a little off balance, though to his credit he didn't show much of it. But of course, it's not like he could really hide something like that from me.

"Oh… Well. Saves me having to tell you. Now… Will you please seat in the cradle for a moment?" He told me, pointing to a relic from a distant past. A vintage nanosuit cradle, complete with the Crynet Systems logo on it. They must have pulled it out from some secret government bunker along with me, this company having disappeared in 2023. Anyway, I sat in and just 20 seconds after the magnetic clamps got me in place, an other two men entered the room. Apparently, they were too chickenshit to come talking to me when I'm free of my movements. One was a civilian wearing an official looking suit of some sort, the other appeared to be military, with a blue and gold uniform that looked like it came out from a cheap sci-fi movie from the 80's. And judging from the number of stripes, he must have been of a quite high rank. The civilian spoke first.

"Welcome back among us, corporal Rodriguez… Or may I call you Alcatraz?..."

"Alcatraz. Whoever I was before does not exist anymore. Now who are you mister…?"

"Oh excuse me. I am agent Rilman, from the US DoD. And this is general Williams from the Systems Alliance."

"Systems Alliance huh? Fancy name. I like it. So, if I understand correctly, I am being leased to it by the US government because some shit went down somewhere, and I'd bet my heart if I still had one that it involves some aliens…"

"That's correct." The general spoke up. "Just a week ago, a scientific expedition in deep space came back to one of our colonies claiming that they had been attacked by alien ships. Their escort didn't return. Needless to say, you are the most well placed to know what happened the last and only time humanity encountered an alien species."

"And so you fear that we are facing the ceph again."

"Evidently. We always suspected that Earth was probably not the only planet they were on, and that eventually we might encounter them again."

"So now you need me. Why? Aren't we at like the 50th nanosuit generation today? I must be a piece of museum now. Unless…"

Rilman spoke again "…Basically nearly all the tech related to the suit has been lost following the death of Jacob Hargreave and Karl Ernst Rarsch and the destruction of their facilities during the Ceph War. Add to that some… _Ethical_… considerations and you have the only one nanosuit in existence today. Some of it's tech still exists of course, as you can see with the suits of the marines present in this room (That's when I noticed the tell-tale grey hexagonal shapes on their form fitting suits), but their capabilities are nowhere near yours. For instance, due to the lack of any symbiosis with the nanotissue, the wearer strength and speed is not improved in any way, as is the brain computational capacity. On top of that, their healing capability relies on external systems and other medical innovations you are not aware of. Basically, they are just body armor with a stealth capacity and minor strength improvement provided my more traditional actuators, but none of the capacities provided by the bonding with the suit."

"I guess my own experience must have been quite an embarrassment."

"Look, the war had been won… There was no way we could justify continuing to develop a technology that turns soldiers into… Into…"

"Something like me?"

"Sorry. But yes."

"No offense taken. After all, to feel angry I guess you have to feel _emotions_ first."

That threw a cold. Although it wasn't totally right, I could feel emotions, but they were dulled. Toned down by 90%. And seemed like they were felt by someone else and not me, courtesy of the cyborg part of my mind.

Williams broke the silence. "Well… Long story short, we need your help and expertise in this affair."

"I'm listening."

"We will send you to the Shanxi sector along with the reinforcement fleet we are sending there. Your job will be to assess the threat, to know if we are indeed facing Cephs, and if need be to assist in fighting the threat."

"And what if I don't care? After all, it's not like I owe anyone something in this time. In fact, It would be more the opposite. And on top of that, my own link to humanity has been tenuous at best lately… So tell me. What could I possibly gain in all this, beside a new chance to die for good this time?"

"Well, for one, we could possibly make you human once again."

"Bullshit."

"Think about it Alcatraz. More than a century have passed since you were put in cryo. That's more that enough time to make some breakthroughs in medical science."

At first, I thought he was just outright lying about that to get me to do what he needed me to do. Not that I would refuse anyway. After all I'm just a weapon: point and shoot. That's all I ever knew and I was alright about it. I just wanted to know how much they needed me. And after checking and rechecking his vital signs, I could only reach the conclusion that either he was the most trained liar I had ever seen, or he was telling the truth. Or he thought he was. Impossible to tell at that moment.

"Okay, maybe I'll trust you then. How do we proceed?"

"Excellent. You will get aboard the ship SSV Midway after you are finished here. The fleet will depart in a few hours, and you'll get properly briefed on everything once en route."

And with further ado, they both turned and left the room, leaving me still stuck in the cradle with the Dr. Kasparov, that was furrowing his brow like crazy in front of his console.

"Hey doc', if you're looking for life signs you can keep looking for a long time."

He looked at me startled, like I interrupted a very complex train of thoughts.

"What? No it's not…"

"And don't think because I'm a grunt I can't understand anything you'll tell me. You'd be surprised at the number of things I can understand since I'm in that thing."

"Well it's just that… Your suit was supposed to be inactive all that time. And as far as I can tell, it wasn't totally." He flicked on a holographic display that showed a section of my spine. "See there? Fused along the spinal cord? That's nanotissue. During all that time, the bond between you and the suit has expanded. The artificial neural network now runs along the entire length of your spine and even expands along the nerves. I don't know how it did that being powered down but it did. I don't know yet what that could mean but it's possible your capabilities have been even more _improved_. Possibly it makes the nervous system even more efficient, rendering you even more faster than before and… I need to look at all the implications. But other than that, everything seems fine. There is some minor tissue damage due to the long time spent frozen but the suit should take care of it. Otherwise, you're free to go."

"Free? Are you so sure?" I said as I got up. Before he could respond however, I was heading out of the medical facility with the two goons following me.

Time to discover in what world I ended up.

**A/N:First chapter for my first time writing on . Yay! Any review is appreciated, as long as it's not just flaming for the sake of flaming ;)**

**Any question? Criticism?**


	2. Chapter 1: Deployment

**A/N: Thanks for all of those who reviewed! It's my first time writing here, so obviously it'll take some time for everything to fall into place regarding the writing and etc.**

**Igfry: Yeah i know, but that's more or less the way he is written in the novel. And the way i see it, Alcatraz tends to exaggerate his own condition because he is quite bitter about what happened to him. So he tends to be very cynical/misanthropic, which may come out as "sassy".**

First thing I noticed when I saw outside the window, I was in a space station. Second thing I immediately noticed after that, was the fact that I was not floating around like you normally do in zero-g, yet I didn't feel any centrifugal force nor did I notice a rotation that might have explained that. Well, time to ask questions. I turned to the one of the two goons following me around that had the most stripes on his shoulder patch. When he saw me staring straight at him, blood-red visor to face, he almost shat his pants. Somehow I had this effect on most people. "Two questions. One, where are we exactly and two, why aren't we in zero-g." I asked.

The poor 20-something boy took a few seconds to catch his breath and to process what I just said, then answered. "We are in Arcturus Station, the Alliance headquarters located in the Arcturus solar system, just a few light years from earth." To his credit, despite obviously being very uncomfortable in my presence, he managed to keep a firm voice. But the way he casually said "just a few light years" caught my attention. Really? We had a practical way to travel FTL that made "a few light years" seem like nothing? He continued: "And for the second question, we have mass effect generators under the floor providing artificial gravity on the whole station. I'll explain on the way to the Midway." And with that he led the way through corridors filled with futuristic tech and civilian and military personnel throwing me odd looks. "And by the way, I'm sergeant Snyder. I'll be your liaison during this mission. Now for the history lesson, 9 years ago we uncovered an alien outpost on Mars."

"Ceph?"

"No, something else, the Protheans. But whoever they were, they were long gone when we got here. However they left a few 'gifts' behind that propelled our understanding of physics…"

Then he went on to explain the basis of mass effect physics, element zero, mass relays… All of that seemed unbelievable. A magical element that somehow managed to manipulate gravity to the point that it made FTL travel possible and made Einstein look like an idiot? An OTHER ancient race of aliens that was present in the solar system and that left behind a network of mass relays spanning the entire fucking galaxy, and that mysteriously vanished after leaving behind a tech cache that propelled human technology hundreds of years forward? Even with my augmented abilities, I had trouble comprehending all that. Especially the physics aspect that was in contradiction with everything I thought. But hey, obviously it worked, otherwise I wouldn't be here.

"And what about the Ceph tech. Obviously they too had a way to travel in space."

"I don't know much about that. All I know is that after we won the war by using the spore against them, all their technology somehow _decayed_. Something to do with the way it was built using nanotechnology. Their lithoships literally crumbled to dust before we could salvage much. All I know is that they used a quantum based technology for space travel that we had been unable to replicate, but I'm not especially well versed in this whole science thing…"

That made sense actually. After all, the Ceph units encountered at Lingshan all had a self destruct mechanism.

"So how much exactly did we gain from them?"

"Well, beside the nanofibers used in my armor as well as in ship building, we got hold of some of their energy based weaponry (With that, he pointed at what I first though was an underslung grenade launcher on his rifle that was actually a plasma cannon not unlike what the Cephs used.) as well a some other more minor stuff, but compared to what we could have gained it's ridiculously little. Ah, here we are, the Midway."

We had entered a docking bay, and the ship in it could be described as the wet dream of any sci-fi nerd. Smooth, looking like an oversized fighter jet, and about a 100 meters long, with a dark grey color and the ubiquitous hexagonal shape on its exterior coating signalling it was made of nanofiber.

"It's a scouting frigate. The fleet heading to Shanxi is composed of a cruiser and 5 frigates. More vessels will be dispatched but for now they are unavailable for deployment."

"That won't stop an attack on the colony."

"We will be alone just for a few days. Besides, our job is merely to assess the threat."

With that we entered the airlock, and finally the ship itself. Overall, on the inside it looked a lot like the submarines back in my days. High-tech, and very cramped, without a single wasted space.

**(A/N: Yeah, I retconned the inside of the ships from canon. Because spaceships with so much unused space is an incredibly dumb idea in my opinion.)**

I was quickly led to the CIC to meet with the captain of the ship. He was currently discussing with the general Williams, and from the way he spoke I could tell he wasn't too happy about my subject. Short presentation. Then he quickly sent me to my "cabin" while the crew was preparing to depart. Apparently I was granted an officer's cabin. I figured it had more to do with the fact that it was an individual one than with any sort of respect in my regard. Anyway, it had a single bed, a desk and a chair, and even a small faucet crammed in a few square meters. I had no use for the bed. The suit made sure I was never tired. Besides, I already slept for more than a century. I turned to the faucet that had a small mirror over it, and for the first time in a long time, I pulled off my visor and stared at my face.

What the-

Damn. Apparently, the suit had somehow decided that I didn't need melanin in my body to be efficient. Because what I saw in the mirror was not what I remembered about my face. Granted, the features were the same, even if they were mostly expressionless. Except that last time I checked, I had brown eyes, brown hair and a slight tan typical of my Hispanic descent. What I saw was bone white skin, white hair and the only thing coloring my eyes were blood vessels, giving them a lovely red tint. I got turned into an albino when I wasn't looking. It made sense after all, the main function of melanin is to protect from solar radiations, mainly ultraviolets. And it wasn't like I was going to leave the suit anytime soon, so it repurposed my melanocytes to suit its needs. To what end, I didn't know yet. It wasn't the first time the Nanosuit did something like that, and all things considered, it was relatively minor compared to what it did to some of my internal organs. If anything, I was going to scare the crap people even more now that I looked like some sort of vampire. Didn't matter to me.

We left the station. Snyder came to my cabin, gasped when he saw my face, and told me general Williams was waiting for me in the CIC for the briefing. When I got there, there was slightly less activity. Apparently, we were in FTL, as I could tell from the red-shift in visible light on the viewscreen showing an exterior front view. Shanxi must have been relatively near to arcturus, because the ETA to it was just over 2 hours. Then again, I had no idea how fast exactly we were going.

Williams spoke. "Well Alcatraz, I guess now you are curious as to what exactly we expect from you. First thing you need to know is, there are good chances that Shanxi will be attacked in the next 24 hours, if the aliens hostile intentions are confirmed. The thing is, we will likely not be able to repel that attack. At least in the first phase. And we cannot evacuate the colony, the fleet is currently stretched too thin for that. Our primary role will be to observe and gather intelligence on the enemy. Who are they? Are they ceph? Why did they attack us? What are their intentions? You were once a Force Recon marine trained in this kind of operation, so you'll be dropped on the planet surface. If there is indeed an invasion, your primary role will not be to fight it, but to gather as much intel as you can, and report to me. I will be in this ship and we will stay in orbit around the planet with the stealth mode activated. As much as I hate to say it, currently we cannot do much for the colony itself. If invasion there is, the local militia and the token garrison won't have a chance in hell to repel it. So evade detection, and fight only when forced to. If these are indeed Cephs, you will have to assess the possibility of beating them the same way we did in the Ceph War. For that your suit will come in handy."

You gotta love the cynicism in that plan. The population of the colony were nothing more than lab rats to be sacrificed so we knew what we were facing.

"Any question?"

"Yes. What if they aren't Ceph."

"Then we will advise you what to do. For now, go and get prepped in the armory. We will drop you as soon as we come out of FTL."

And with that, Snyder obliged and led me out to the armory. On the way there, I asked him if he was okay with the fact that we both were going to be dropped practically without support when some serious shit was likely to come down on us. He responded that he volunteered, and that he was trained in special ops. Something about being an N7 marine, whatever that meant. Apparently, he was quite eager to see some real action. Idiot. If we indeed had to face "some real action", based on previous experience I gave him a 75 percent chance of dying in the first 30 minutes, give or take 5 percent.

In the armory, the requisition officer quickly gave what looked like some sort of camelback with a harness as long as a rifle similar to Snyder's, and a pistol of some sort. After some explanations, it appeared that the harness was a mass effect shield generator that will provide additional protection, and the camelback was in fact capacitors capable of providing additional energy to the suit. Good. Apparently they figured the main flaw of the nanosuit, namely the fact that sometimes it felt like the thing was powered by AAA batteries. Now I could store nearly ten times the amount of energy I originally could. The rifle was as I figured it, a mass effect based weapon shooting tiny bullets shaved of an ammo block at extremely high speed, supported by an underslung ceph-tech based plasma cannon for when I needed something with a bigger punch. The pistol was a standard issue mass effect based gun. The requisition officer went on to give me a harness to carry the weapons and ammunition on me when he noticed that they were already strapped to the suit. "How the… Is that some kind of magnetic lock?"

"No, it sucks."

He looked at me dumbfounded.

"No, literally, the surface of the suit is sucking the weapon locally to hold it in place." And with that I gave a shove to the pistol strapped to my leg to demonstrate my point. After that I took a ceramic-blade combat knife and strapped it on my chest, as well as some grenades, and I was set. I put the visor back in place and took the rifle. SECOND quickly interfaced with the weapons computer and gave me a nice targeting reticule as well as some additional information like the heat level, energy level and so on. The officer then pointed me to a shooting range situated in a long,narrow corridor running the length of the ship, and pulled up some holographic targets. I squizzed the trigger. Barely any recoil. Not that it mattered with the suit anyway. And all the bullets had hit the target squarely in the head, at a distance of about 70 meters. Sweet. Being on a ship, I didn't have the occasion to practice with the plasma cannon, instead I tried with a simulator. It appeared that this thing had enough punch to rival with a good old m203, with the plus side that it just used energy that could recharge from the weapon's small eezo core itself.

"Attention. Alcatraz and sergeant Snyder to the hangar bay. We are entering Shanxi's orbit and have dropped out of FTL. Stealth mode engaged." We heard from the ship's PA. We made our way there quickly, and Williams was already waiting for us.

"You're all set? Good. We will enter the atmosphere and drop you as soon as possible. It appears that the aliens are already arriving. 20 ships have dropped out of FTL in system just over a minute ago and are heading to Shanxi. It looks like your talents will be needed very soon marines…"

As he talked I could feel the tremors indicating that we were entering the atmosphere at high speed. A few minutes later, the hangar bay opened, and before we even landed I jumped out 50 meters above the ground. The suit absorbed the impact, as it always did, and soon Snyder was beside me already holding his rifle. We landed in a small clearing in a wood just 5 klicks north of the main settlement. I looked around, scanning the surroundings while a small part of my mind realized that it was the first time I landed on another planet. And indeed the vegetation was quite alien, mainly due to the unusual coloration. There was the whole spectrum of visible light (and even non-visible light, but that only concerned me and my augmented senses) in the foliage, and if I didn't know better, I would have swore this was some LSD induced hallucination.

We made it out of the wood to see more familiar vegetation. Namely, cultures of corn and wheat. Then we headed to a nearby hill where we could have a better line of sight on the settlement. It was mostly composed of what appeared to be prefabs and was relatively small, holding no more than a few thousand people at most. I could see from the vantage point that the small garrison had already set up some makeshift defenses and the civilians were most likely holed up in basements and such. I could tell from here that they were not very hopeful about their odds. They knew what was coming and they had no hope of escaping it. They weren't even aware that the small fleet I came with was present, since it was all a covert op.

Then we heard a whirring sound coming from the sky. A dozen trail of smoke were descending toward the colony. I turned to Snyder. I couldn't see his face through his visor, but I could tell from his body language that he was very uncomfortable.

"You said you were itching to see some real action? Well, here you go. Enjoy the show."

**A/N: Two chapters in a day. I don't know if i will be able to keep this up for long given my occupation. But anyway, any review/criticism is welcome.**


	3. Chapter 2: First Contact

**A/N: Third chapter. I'm trying to make them a little longer now. As always, give me your thoughts about what i should improve and etc...**

**EDIT: added separations between different POVs. I don't know why but it didn't translate when i uploaded...  
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The ships were circling a few kilometers over the colony. Like vultures trying to determine if their next meal could still bite them or not. They must have found that it could, because a few minutes later they launched missiles at the periphery, taking out whole buildings and defensive positions. Now the colony was basically defenceless, save for a few hundred panicked Alliance soldiers trying to regroup somewhere or to contact their HQ, which incidentally had just been wiped out. I guess the array of antennae on the roof of the building the HQ was in was like a target with "SHOOT ME" obligingly written on it for E.T. .

Immediately after that first volley, they descended again, though this time they were going to land troops.

As I watched their bizarrely shaped ships making their way to the ground, I made the reflection that the fact that they didn't just outright nuke the colony was a good sign. At least that meant that they intended to keep some survivors. For interrogation? Study? Or ,why not, just enslaving them for some evil alien overlord? Anyway, at least I was sure of one thing, they were definitely not Ceph. What they would do next would be instructive.

They landed around the colony. One ship landed just a few hundred meters from the bush Snyder and me were hidden. I couldn't have dreamed better. Not that I could dream, but anyway. The bay opened.

At that moment I wondered. What was the probability that on some distant planet in the ass-end of the galaxy, a sentient species evolved with the same general shape as humans? I half expected some kind of eight legged monstrosity with tentacles everywhere or something resembling an oversized bug, but what came out of the ship was comparatively incredibly mundane. Two legs. Two arms. One head. And at the place you would expect them to be. Even their height was about right for a human. Granted, there were a few details that painted them as definitely not human, like the fact they had three-fingered hands, almost like talons, and the shapes of the torso and the helmet were all wrong. Beside that, I couldn't see much. They were clad in full-body armor and I couldn't tell if they were made of jelly or lizard like.

Still, the ship debarked a company worth of troop, along with 4 bizarrely shaped wheeled tanks, and they quickly secured the surroundings of their landing zone. Time to switch to cloak mode. Snyder thought the same. Good. He might survive longer than expected if shit hits the fan.

They deployed and began to advance toward the colony. Two words to describe them? Organized. Disciplined. They kept their distances while advancing like troops in manoeuvre. However it allowed SECOND to paint all the likely officers in my HUD with a neat red triangle designating them as priority targets.

When they were at about 300 meters from the colony, some defenders opened fire with their assault rifles. Too soon. But what would you expect from panicked, outnumbered and outmatched defenders that lost their command along with 70% of their fighting capability before the fight even started? They were quickly dispatched by the main guns of the tanks. And they continued their advance, as if nothing happened. I could hear some sporadic fighting elsewhere in the colony, indicating that the same scene was being repeated.

They entered the colony. I could see through my visors that one of the defenders was still alive, lying on the ground. What will they do? They kept him alive, restrained him, took his weapon and sent him out of the fighting zone under escort. How… _Humane_… Well, at least they weren't some genocidal aliens bent on cleansing the galaxy on behalf of the Master Race. But now that they were in town, I lost sight of them.

Time to get closer.

* * *

><p>Centurion Tleilax was surprised. Not by the fact that this relatively primitive race that thought it was a good idea to try to reactivate a dormant relay looked surprisingly similar to the Asari, an other race Tleilax didn't like much, thanks to their generally holier-than-you attitude, except they were apparently bi-gendered, judging from the few specimens he had seen. But because for a race that was apparently relatively new to the concept of mass effect physics, judging from their relatively weak shields, they had a surprisingly resilient armor. It was nothing like their armor, made from a ceram-plast lightweight alloy. In fact, the material of their form fitting suits looked like some sort of dark grey rubber, with some tiny hexagonal shapes on it. It had taken the combined fire of three soldiers to bring down the defender that was lying dead at his feet, and he had the time to severely wound one of them.<p>

Not that it mattered anyway, the shock and awe tactic used to bring them in line was successful, and the resistance was relatively weak and sporadic, with only a few turian casualties so far. Even more so when they noticed that they were taking prisoners and not executing anyone in sight. Many of them preferred to live than to fight an already lost battle. Good for them. Maybe they would prove very useful as a new client race to the Hierarchy, once they found their homeworld and made them submit before the Council could interfere.

Still, that armor was surprising to him. What was even more surprising were the reports coming from other units that apparently they could _cloak_. Optic camouflage was not a foreign concept to him, the hierarchy had developed a few prototypes that more or less worked as intended, but their very high energy requirements and the fact that it was a less than perfect cloak leaving a blur made the hierarchy deem it impractical. But apparently this somewhat primitive race managed to mass produce a cloaking device that was not only practical but also near perfect, leaving only a very slight lensing effect. Not that it posed much of a problem, the turians encountering them kept their cool and tracked the few that attempted this tactic with their thermal imaging, although the cloak managed to leave only a faint thermal trace behind, but it proved enough. That kind of technology would greatly benefit the Hierarchy.

Back to the mission. He still had to sweep clean the settlement and bring any survivor and civilian to the central square before he could relax. That should not take very long.

* * *

><p>Stupid Snyder. What did he think? That somehow with his own measly muscles and his nanosuit light he could keep up with me and my superhuman abilities? No way in hell he could accompany me on this. Liaison or not. And I wasn't about to let my ticket out risk his sorry life with a walking corpse like me. After all, he was the one with the radio. Anyway, he finally saw reason when I threatened to break both his legs.<p>

So here I was, entering the then alien-occupied colony in cloak mode by following the waypoints conveniently placed by SECOND, ready to gather more data about the opposition so Snyder could make his report to Williams. By the way, I was thankful for the power pack. Now I could stay cloaked for a good 15 minutes while moving, and somehow the energy came back even faster than before. I climbed on top of a building and made my way in the city hopping from one roof to the next. Apparently, they were finished with the resistance and were gathering all the survivors in the central plaza, which was heavily guarded. I could see that they were attempting to communicate with sign language and a trying to exchange a few simple words with their captives, but they weren't very successful, the prisoners being either too freaked out from being brutally attacked by aliens or too angered to respond. That's when I saw my first glimpse of their faces. They looked lizard-like, with some weird-ass mandibles where their mouths were, two eyes, a nose and some strange horn-like thingies jutting out of their skulls. On top of that they seemed to have some kind of painting on their faces. War paints? Or just because it was fashionable? Nifty aliens. Hah.

Anyway, I still had to gather more data than just what I could see. And that would mean getting me some _samples. _They had gathered their few fallens already, so I had to get some _fresh_ samples. Only one way to do that. I hopped from building to building, still cloaked, scanning the streets looking for one of them foolish enough to be alone. Not an easy task. Like I observed, they were disciplined, and they were always at least three of them. I was beginning to think that I would have to get three samples instead of one, when I spotted him.

_Him._

Because with the way he was nonchalantly taking a piss on a wall, there was no way _he _could have been a _she_. Eventhough I didn't notice a significant sexual dimorphism in them. In fact, I didn't even know if they had genders at all. Not that it mattered greatly at that moment. I jumped four stories in the street and sneaked behind him still cloaked. I was just behind him when he finished and turned around.

I materialized in front of him.

Say goodnight.

And with that, before he could react in any way, he received the mightiest, coltan-titanium reinforced punch ever. His head was splattered, his body fell like a sack of potato on the wall he just pissed on, and I left a fist-shaped hole right behind where his head was. Will Smith would have been proud.

My hand was covered in a sticky blue substance as well as some gray matter that I supposed was part of his brains. The suit was quick to get to work and immediately began to analyze it. Proteins. Chemicals. DNA. Apparently, they were dextro-DNA, but were still carbon based. Interesting. I uploaded my finds to Snyder via radio-contact, so he could transmit it to the ships in orbit, and I began to examine E.T.'s equipment. Ceramic armor, the energy readings of a mass-effect shield, a mass-effect based assault rifle…

It was at that point in my investigation that two of his buddies came to see what took him so long. It was bound to happen. They saw me crouched over their dead comrade and quickly drawn their weapons, not firing yet, but shouting at me in their bizarre, flanging voice. I could tell that they weren't especially happy with what happened to the late Mr. Piss-On-A-Wall. I stood up all my height, showing them I had no weapons in my hands. They gasped a little when they saw the massive, muscular frame the suit gave me, but they approached anyway, aiming squarely at my chest. Three meters.

Now.

I suddenly leaped in the air above them. They opened fire, but too late, shooting where I was standing. I landed in the middle of them, grabbed one by the collar, threw him on his pal with as much strength as the nanosuit could gather, which was a lot. They both rolled for about 20 meters, and I drew my rifle and peppered them with bullets to finish them off. That gave me the occasion to test the strength of their shields. And I must say, they took at least three times the amount of damage alliance shields could withstand before failing, because I had to hold the trigger for quite a few seconds. Their armor, on the other hand, was shit compared to nanoweave armor.

Anyway, showtime.

SECOND was picking up radio chatter everywhere in the vicinity. They were all closing in on my position, wondering what all this shooting was about and why the hell three of them stopped responding. I was eager to answer their questions. SECOND, sensing that the situation suddenly got tense, began immediately to pump me full of adrenalin and testosterone, preparing me for the murderous rampage that was about to follow. That kind of state the suit could plunge me in had always been something quite paradoxal. On the one hand, it turned me into a feral, bloodthirsty predator. But at the same time I could reason rationally and plan my course of action in a fast, cold, calculating manner, courtesy of the machine part of my mind. Overall it made me deadly.

I ran to the nearest group of three aliens that SECOND had tagged at full speed, and jumped just before the intersection that separated them from me. While in mid-air, I shot with the underslung plasma cannon right in the middle of them barely one tenth of a second after they came into view. There was no way they could evade that. The plasma ball exploded in the middle of them, instantly killing two and maiming the third, who went to the ground clutching the stump of his now gone left leg and screaming in pain through his helmet speakers.

I didn't waste time and ran away from there. As deadly as I was, now they were all converging on me and there was no way I could face them all head on. On top of that, there was a good 2000 angered aliens now looking for me. I needed to get out of there.

I climbed to the roof of the nearest prefab building and proceeded to pull out the way I came, by jumping from roof to roof in stealth mode. For a moment it was going fine, until I encountered two of them on the roof I had just jumped on. At first they didn't notice me, and I tried to make as little sound as possible. Then one of them turned his helmet toward me. Hesitated for an instant. Then aimed at me. Thermal imaging. I realized my cloak was of little use if I was at less than 20 meters of them. I jumped on him before he could squeeze the trigger, grabbed him by the neck and threw him flying down the building one-handed, while I fired a long burst on the other one, bringing him down before he could react.

Now they knew my new position.

* * *

><p>Tleilax was pissed-off. The city was supposed to be secured, and suddenly he heard gunshots. Soon after, he heard an explosion, and then he got confused reports about two patrols that were ambushed, leaving only one survivor badly wounded and in a state of shock. At first he thought it was just a small group of defenders that decided to hide and then to play hero, so he ordered his units to sweep the sector of the ambush. Then, just two minutes after that, there were new gunshots, but this time 500 meters from where the first ambush took place, and he lost contact with an other two of his men. Another group?<p>

He ordered all the platoons in the vicinity to surround the place, supported by any tank that was close by. He wasn't about to let a few of these _pyjaks_ think that they could engage the Turian Hierarchy in guerrilla warfare and live to tell about it. It was the most cowardly, honorless way to fight, and they were soon about to find out what happens when you choose to fight this way.

And then he heard an explosion.

And another. And then heavy gunfire.

And in his command tank, he heard panicked shouts on multiple channels, followed by even more explosions, and a few channels cut to static.

And nobody to make a coherent report on what they were facing.

This was getting out of hand. It was more than a few stray defenders, those were coordinated attacks. He had to react.

He ordered his units to pull out and fall back on a smaller perimeter centered on the plaza. He never thought he'd have to give such an order, but he needed to see clearly in this situation and to sort out this mess.

* * *

><p>Well, that was tense. When I saw the column of about 30 aliens advancing with a tank in front down in the street my first reaction was to go the other way. But then SECOND scanned the tank and pinpointed a likely weak point, in the neck of the turret, where traditionally the ammo was stored and I guessed it was the same for these aliens. In a few hundred milliseconds, the plan fell into place, and I began to enact it. I threw a grenade in the middle of the group that was advancing in the cover of the tank, switched position, and two seconds before the grenade went off I fired with the plasma cannon at the tank's likely weak spot.<p>

Jackpot.

The plasma ball, being mostly weightless and composed of superheated ions, bypassed the kinetic shielding of the tank without losing much power and exploded just where I intended, causing a chain reaction with the ammo and the tank to go up in flames, taking 6 troopers with it. To add to the confusion, the grenade then went off, killing or maiming an additional 4. By this time I had changed position. To their credit, the remaining 20 aliens reacted rather quickly, even if in a panicked way and began to fire wildly toward the roof I shot from. But I had already moved, and threw an other two grenades in their midst before noticing that an other tank was arriving with a good 50 additional troops. Deciding that I could not pull such a lucky action twice in a few minutes, I made my escape and proceeded to get back to Snyder.

After that, all the alien units I saw were in the process of retreating toward the center of the colony. Apparently I gave them quite a scare. Not that I could blame. In the space of less than 10 minutes, I had taken out or wounded a platoon's worth of troops and destroyed a tank, more than what they had lost capturing the colony in the first place. If I was in their commander's shoes, I would be wary too.

Time to make my report.

That good old Snyder was still where I left him. And judging from the fact that he didn't stop asking me questions about what the hell was happening, he was quite curious as to what I had been up to during my "infiltration". He seemed quite impressed when I told him that in the latest match there had been a final score of 32-0 in favor of the Alcatraz team versus the Fuckface team.

Without asking any further question, he put me through to general Williams. He too seemed quite impressed with the performance of his new toy in the field, and I uploaded to him all the intel and the records I had gathered while he was asking me questions about the aliens, mainly their attitude, technology, tactics and so on. He seemed relieved to learn that they were so human-like, because apparently it meant that this war could remain "relatively civilized" (sic).

He then told me to continue to gather data on them and, if possible, to continue to harass them in order to keep them focusing on me while they were preparing the counter attack that was due to happen within a week.

A whole week of murdering aliens? Woohoo. I'm ecstatic.

* * *

><p>Tleilax was confused. After that last engagement that claimed the lives of 26 of his soldiers and crippled an other 6, and that had destroyed one of his tanks, everything just calmed down, and he had still basically no idea of what they had just faced. They were just the reports of a few shell-shocked survivors that were talking about one incredibly fast alien taking on a whole platoon by itself that managed to put a serious dent in his troops' confidence, but he couldn't give much credence to such reports. Most likely, they were just a few dozen of these aliens with their cloaking suits that played their cards well, and eventually he will crush them.<p>

He had also an other kind of trouble.

The prisoners were proving very uncooperative now that they saw that someone was causing his troops trouble, and all the attempts to initiate some sort of dialogue ended in failure. He needed to remedy to that, because he needed intel ,fast , and a way to communicate in order to convince the fools still fighting that what they were doing was futile. And for that he knew one solution.

An asari.

More specifically, an asari spectre of his acquaintance that owed him a favour for a service he gave her years ago, and one that would keep her mouth shut about what the Hierarchy was up to in this sector.

He just hoped Vasira would not be too opposed to the idea of mind-rape, but after all, she was a spectre.


	4. Chapter 3: Captive

**A/N: Yeah, fourth chapter!**

**As always, rate and review, please!**

* * *

><p>The night was on fire.<p>

I must have had seriously pissed them off by then, because they decided to bring in the big guns. More specifically, one of their ships was circling over the city, blowing up any place they suspected I was hiding in. I had to admit that for them I had become a serious pain in the ass, since I received _carte blanche_ for going on a killing spree earlier that day. By that time, I had a kill-count of about 120 aliens, killed in various way, including, but not limited to, backstabbing, having an entire aircar thrown on their head, being falcon-punched with enough force to remain embedded in a wall, being explosively torn to shreds and other such creative ways, depending on the tactical situation at hand. At one point they even finally got a fix on me and half a dozen of them had me cornered in an alley. They even managed to drain my suit energy to about 10% before I dispatched them with well-aimed bursts to the face and a few plasma shots, but now they finally knew for sure what they were facing and reacted accordingly, hence the ship circling.

By then, each time I killed some of them and they lost contact with their units, the remaining units in the vicinity didn't even bother to come to see what happened. They just ran away from the place. At first, I thought that maybe this time I had REALLY scared them shitless, but fortunately SECOND knew better. Because if it hadn't been for its warning, I would have been reduced to a pile of high-tech nano-ash, as a few minutes after my last kill, an entire block just went up in flames. Apparently, overkill wasn't part of their vocabulary.

As flattering as it was to warrant such extreme measures to bring me down, the fact that there was a fucking spaceship playing whack-a-mole with me complicated my task of murdering them by a great deal. I was reduced to use hit-and-run-like-hell tactics, because some times they didn't even bother to wait that all their pals had pulled out of the zone to suddenly rain fire on where I was just seconds ago.

So I decided to calm down a notch, and went back to spying on them for the rest of the night, letting them think that they finally got me with the last airstrike. I made my way to the central plaza, sneaking past patrols while avoiding being in the range of their thermal scanning equipment.

Plaza was not really the correct word to describe this. In fact, it was an enormous space in the middle of the settlement that served multiple purposes. At the same time, it was a spaceport, but also a stadium, as indicated by the few bleachers placed around it. At the moment though, it was used to house the entire civilian population in makeshift tents, and it was surrounded by guards. I was there in my observations when I noticed a new ship descending toward an area that was kept clear for that purpose at the edge of the spaceport.

It was smaller than the usual ships, a simple shuttle, and of a different design than everything I had seen until that point. It couldn't hold more than a dozen passengers, so these were probably not reinforcements. Probably someone high-ranking, coming to see what the hell was going on with the occupation that warranted whole city blocks to be set ablaze.

It landed. The ramp opened. And out of it came…

What the FUCK.

* * *

><p>Spectre Vasira Lallis hopped out of her ship to be immediately met by her old friend centurion Tleilax, who seemed hurried and nervous, as if he hadn't had time to relax for a relatively long time.<p>

Vasira was, by most standards, a prime example of her species. Being just 203 years old, she was still a relatively young maiden, and for her race she was quite athletic, with a lithe figure complimented by her commando outfit. She had a rather pretty face too, with a sky blue tone and some red facepaint that gave her a more martial attitude. She quickly saluted Tleilax and immediately inquired what was all this about.

"Alright Tleilax. I know I owe you a service for that help you gave me with those batarians two years ago, but could you please explain why you needed my talents _here_, in a previously unexplored part of the galaxy? You were lucky I wasn't at the opposite part of the galaxy when I received your message and not currently on a mission you know. And…" She looked in the direction of the makeshift camp holding the humans prisoner and caught a glimpse of a few of them."…by the Goddess, who _are_ these people? And how come they look just like Asari? This is a first contact situation? "

Tleilax seemed rather nervous at that. "To put it shortly… Yes."

"And, as is the habit of the Hierarchy, you shot first and worried about asking questions later. Right?"

That angered Tleilax.

"And what were we supposed to do at that moment? They were about to open an unmapped relay, spirits! You should remember what happened the last time it was attempted, no? The Rachni War and galactic destruction on an unprecedented scale? Of course we shot first! We weren't about to let an upstart species endangering the whole galaxy, just because they are new to space travel!"

"Yes, and then the Hierarchy saw an opportunity to make a new client race… Right? And I guess that the reason you had to call me is that they are proving rather… _Uncooperative_. And you need my talents to make them more compliant. Am I wrong?"

An embarrassed silence.

"No."

"Right… You know normally I should report to the council about this."

"You wouldn't. Or have you forgotten what happened a few years ago? If I decided to let it slip, your status would be revoked, and you would be jailed", Tleilax said, waving his hand to make a point.

"I said that I should, not that I would. Alright. What do you need exactly."

* * *

><p>This time I seriously thought that I had visions. It was already surprising how human-like these aliens were, but <em>this.<em>

Improbable.

Unbelievable.

In my visor, I had what could only be described as a nerd's wet dream. Seriously, what were the odds that on two different planets, two species evolved that looked exactly the same, apart from some minor details? This was ridiculous. And yet there she was, looking all sexy in her slutty S&M outfit, with her blue skin, tentacle hair and a remarkable pair of boobs. If SECOND hadn't made sure to keep on a leash all those typically organic pulsions usually present in humans, I swear I'd have had an insta-boner. Not that I could have had one anyway, the Nanosuit was very tightly adjusted after all.

Instead, I was just completely incredulous. Setting aside those thoughts, I made two observations. One, we weren't facing one single species. Now there were two at least. And two, there was obviously a reason they brought her here. And I'll be damned if it's not a _she, _unless Mother Nature had played some kind of sick joke on top of that.

Obviously, they had some problems communicating with their captives. So their thinking must have been that they would have a much easier time trying to communicate if they had someone that happened to look a _lot _like those they are trying to communicate with. Logical thinking, after all. "It might be successful, if they manage to find someone that won't instantly start drooling", I thought. I wondered how they would proceed.

Miss Blue-Slut spent some time discussing on the landing pad with one of the fuckfaces that seemed to be an officer of some sort, and then she followed him into a nearby tent. Soon after that, they brought one of their prisoner to the tent, under guard. I could see that he was an Alliance officer, which rank I couldn't see from where I was and due to the night time. He entered. There was nothing I could do to know what was going on in the tent.

* * *

><p>Commander Gustav Johnson was determined to not let anything slip past his lips, and if possible, to be the most annoying pain in the ass these aliens had ever seen. He had a clear idea as to the aliens' intentions, they wanted to establish a dialogue. Know their enemy better. At that moment, less than 24 hours after the colony he was supposed to defend got invaded by hostile aliens, the only thing he was willing to give them was the finger, along with some bullets to go with it. They made him sit on a chair and tied him. Then he saw her. At first, he thought it was an other human due to the bad lighting, but then he remarked the skin tone and the weird… <em>Things<em>… Instead of hair. Needless to say, he was more than a little surprised initially to see that aliens could be this similar to humans, but he quickly put his expressionless face back on. They weren't about to get him to talk with that.

The blue alien approached and placed both her hands on each side of his head. She approached her head of his, and then he saw her eyes turn black in an instant.

Suddenly he got a weird feeling. Almost like if…

No. It wasn't a feeling. He was definitely not _alone_ in his head. He could feel foreign thoughts sifting though his memories. Searching.

What the hell? That kind of stuff only existed in sci-fi! No way aliens could read your thoughts… Yes. That alien definitely could. As soon as he realized that, Johnson tried to block his thoughts with all his might, trying to focus on something so that she couldn't get what she was looking for. But it was a duel he was quickly losing. He could feel his blood beating at his temples. Blood began to trickle down his nose. And then, as suddenly as it started, it was over. The blue alien backed away from him, trying to catch her breath.

At least his resistance had some effect, he thought with a slight smirk.

* * *

><p>"Goddess…", Vasira said, trying to catch her breath.<p>

"Are you alright? What happened?"

"I'm alright, Tleilax. It's just that… He was more strong-willed that I expected. I almost failed."

"But you succeeded right?"

"Relax. Yes, I succeeded, but barely, and only in getting their language…"

She turned to the prisoner.

"_Do you understand me?"_

He stared at her wide-eyed.

"No shit. Now you speak English?"

"Yes, thanks in no small part to _you_. Now if you don't mind, my good friend here had some questions to ask, that I'll take the liberty to ask myself."

He stared at her for a few seconds, then answered.

"Interesting accent you got there. Almost sounds like French. I had a French girlfriend once you know, and aside from your skin color and those weird tentacles on your head, you remind me a lot of –OUCH!"

She had punched him squarely across the jaw with a surprising strength. He spat blood on the floor, along with one teeth.

"…bitch. Yeah, that relationship ended a little like that."

"Now you can either be cooperative and answer my questions, or things are going to get _really_ unpleasant, and I'll punch you until you die and then I'll start again with an other of your people. In the end, I'll know what I need to know anyway. So don't try to play hero."

He didn't answer and lowered his gaze.

"Good. Now, let's do some introductions first. I am an asari. My good friend here and his fellow soldiers are turians. Your species has a name, right?"

"Humans. We're humans."

"Good, _human_. Now, if I understood clearly, lately a group of your people has been causing some trouble lately, refusing to surrender peacefully and killing a lot of turians in a reckless way. What can you tell us about them?"

"They're doing a damn good job –OOMPH!- bitch!"

"Please don't be a fool. It doesn't have to be unpleasant. Anyway, it seems that the latest airstrikes have calmed them down a bit, possibly killed them all. We know that they are sporting surprisingly advanced combat armors, according to the reports. How many of them are there? What can you tell us about their capabilities? Answer!"

"I know nothing about no advanced suit! As far as I know, you fucking aliens killed or captured all of my men! Whoever are those people, I can tell you they're not mine, and as far as I'm concerned they can keep killing you all all they want!"

Vasira pulled her arm back, preparing to strike an other blow, when a massive explosion was heard nearby.

* * *

><p>What.<p>

You thought I was going to let a prime target like that to be left untouched? As soon as I noticed the antenna array on top of that particular tank, I knew I couldn't let an occasion like that pass. Antennas mean command vehicle, and with luck, by destroying it I was going to take out the fucker who ordered those airstrikes in the same occasion. So I patiently sneaked between patrols until I was at about 100 meters from it, and I fired a plasma ball through the door some careless alien had left open.

Boom.

Maximum armor.

At that point, I saw that I had started a massive shitstorm. I saw in my HUD that nearly every trooper in the area was coming to see what the fuck had caused their command vehicle to go up in flames seemingly spontaneously.

To add to the confusion, I didn't wait to do a power-jump behind three of the fuckfaces who were on the other side of the container I was hiding behind and peppered them with high-velocity bullets. They fired back. I didn't care. As expected, my shield failed rather quickly and the bullets began ricocheting on my suit, but by then it was over. I threw a grenade toward crates where I knew some aliens were going to come out thanks to second, and I switched back to stealth and ducked behind cover. And then I hear an EXPLOSION, man. Because apparently, all those containers and crates that were stored in this area were filled with some kind of fuel or ammo. There were flames everywhere, and the aliens were shouting like crazy. Then I –or was it SECOND that suggested it? I don't know- had an idea. I knew the efficiency of my cloak was severely limited by the fact that they were using thermal imaging. But what if suddenly the whole area was flaming hot?

I ran everywhere, spraying grenades and plasma balls at random, until a large perimeter ended up looking like a flaming inferno.

The aliens couldn't see shit. They were firing wildly anywhere they believed they saw me. Some of them even began to fire at each other. For my part, I added to the confusion by following my trusted protocol of running and jumping cloaked, decloaking, armoring up, killing, cloaking, and then rinse & repeat. The whole area was turning into a very litteral crossfire, and the situation was to my advantage.

* * *

><p>Vasira stopped her blow, caught by surprise by the explosion. She turned to Tleilax, who suddenly looked like his worst nightmare had just come true.<p>

"They're here… Inside the perimeter! They are HERE!"

Vasira ran out to see what the situation was.

It was chaos. There were explosions going off everywhere inside a storage area located just 200 meters from where she was, and the sound of gunfire was filling the air. She couldn't believe her eyes.

She drew her assault rifle and ran toward the area. She was a Spectre, and a trained asari commando. She figured she could handle a few humans, no matter how advanced their suits were. She was a powerful biotic, after all.

At 100 meters, she finally caught a glimpse of one of them. Turning visible in the middle of the flames, it quickly killed four turians with his rifle and _jumped_ on a fifth before literally _crushing_ his head with its fist and turning invisible again. It had looked like a tall male human, but dark and _massively_ muscular, with a red visor and chrome-like joints.

She knew better than to mindlessly wander into this killzone. If she wanted to stop them (but was there really _more_ than one of them?), she needed to be smart.

Whoever they were, they were certainly planning to pull out from there before the big guns, namely the turian tank, came to add their firepower to the current mayhem. She just needed to be on the likely escape route, and to be attentive so as to not be caught by surprise.

* * *

><p>Ultimately, after having killed or severely wounded a few dozen of them (and a few more killed by their own pals), I had to get out of this mess, unless I wanted to face 4 tanks at once. Magic suit or not, I had my limits, and SECOND was bugging me about "CRITICAL THREATS" closing in on me.<p>

So I left the party I had created unnoticed. Those idiots were still busy shooting each other, so it was relatively easy. I crossed their perimeter back, and proceeded to exit the area via a back alley, and everything was going fine, until a freight train hit me.

No. Really.

A fucking freight train, that was the only possibility. I was sent flying and I crashed in a wall about 10 meters from where I was. The only thing I saw was a blue halo coming _fast_ at me, so fast that even with my enhanced reflexes I couldn't do shit to avoid it.

I quickly came back to my senses and then I saw her.

The Blue Bitch.

She was standing in the middle of the alley contemplating me in the process of getting up from a bunch of trash bins like some fucking dominatrix, with a contemptuous smirk on her face.

And then, before I could even draw my assault rifle, she did it again.

I swear it was like fucking _magic_. She suddenly glowed blue, and then I couldn't move a finger. The mighty Alcatraz, who came back from the dead with a kickass suit that made him a nearly unstoppable force on the battlefield, stuck in place like a garden gnome. Just like that.

She approached me slowly with a smug expression that seemed to say "I'm smarter than you", and stopped at just half a meter of me. Examining me, or more precisely examining the suit.

Then she spoke.

"So, human, you are the one that caused all these troubles? All by yourself? I must say that it's impressive, for such a young species."

What the hell. She spoke English now?

"I have to say that this suit of yours has impressive capabilities. I'm sure the turians will be quite happy to get their claws on it."

During that time, SECOND was far from inactive. It was using all it's processing power to figure out just what the fuck was keeping me from moving, and to find a way to break free. It had just found it.

"REROUTING 100% OF AVAILABLE POWER TO RIGHT ARM."

Oh yeah. Come closer, beauty.

And she did just that, putting her face just a few inches from my visor, staring where she figured my eyes were.

"And do you have a name, hum-arrk!"

It drained nearly half of my expanded energy reserve, but my right arm broke free from the stasis field and I grabbed her by the throat. Not wasting time, I threw her through the window of a nearby prefab and quickly followed.

To her credit, she was recovering quite quickly from her short flight, but not really enough. She saw me coming at her and attempted to place a jab in my stomach, but needless to say, those nano-abs are quite strong. Instead, she just nearly broke her fingers and cried out in pain, clutching her hand.

I backhanded her across the face, sending her unconscious to the ground.

The other aliens, only then realizing that I had left the party, were coming this way to investigate all the racket. Deciding quickly that I couldn't let this occasion pass, as she was as far as I knew the only alien that spoke english, I grabbed the unconscious bitch and put her over my shoulder potato bag-style, and then quickly fled at full speed to rejoin Snyder's position.

It seemed that I had made a prisoner. That was a first.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: On a side note, i went back to playing some Crysis 2 multiplayer on PC, and oh my. I remember why i liked it so much. It's fast, brutal, unforgiving and a lot of fun, especially when you get high scores with a 32/2 k/d ratio. *brag* *brag***

**Anyway, i mostly went back to playing it so i could get the feeling of the nanosuit back to get some inspiration for the action sequences. In the future, i'll try to stress the suit's abilities a bit more. Anyway. Any suggestions?**


	5. Chapter 4: Nice to meet you

**A/N: Okay, i know i've been away for a while and this is overdue, but due to my current occupation, i may not be able to update more than once every two months, until summer at least. Sorry guys...**

**Anyway. For me, i'd consider this just half a chapter, since i originally planned to do a lot more, but hey, i had to release something ;)**

**And looking back, there are a lot of things i'm not satisfied with. The first two chapters are going waaay too fast. They could've been a lot more detailed than that...**

* * *

><p>Getting back to Snyder's position with my… "Captive" proved slightly difficult, since i couldn't rely on my stealth abilities for the moment. Not to mention the fact that they must have had noticed she had disappeared and where looking for her. I had to wait for some time hiding in a basement with the unconscious blue babe for an opening between their patrols, while Snyder kept bugging me on the radio for "status updates". This guy was really starting to get annoying.<p>

Obviously he was not only here to relay intel on the aliens' capabilities and intentions to Alliance command, he was also reporting about _my_ capabilities, although he never mentioned it to me directly. But come on. He thought he could fool me into believing that he was only observing the aliens? That suit has more sensors built in it than an entire fleet of fighter jets, along with a semi-sentient (or was it?) AI to sift through all the data gathered. As soon as he made passive scans on me after the first time I came back from combat, I knew that something was up, although I didn't mention it. After all, it was logical. I was their new toy on the field, it was only normal that they wanted to know just what they could do with it.

Anyway, I told him to shut the fuck up. And then I told him I was bringing someone home.

Hah.

I was only communicating with him via voice communications, but already I could tell he was dumbfounded about just who I had with me, eventhough I didn't go into great details as to how _human_ my captive was. It would have been too much for him to comprehend after having already been told that on top of that she spoke English. After that I cut the communication. He already had enough to make a preliminary report to the higher-ups and his questions could wait until I got back.

While doing this and hiding, I took a moment to examine further the Smurfette lying on the ground of some basement. She was still unconscious, but breathing. Fortunately I didn't hit too hard, which, when you knew that with that suit I could punch through walls one-handed, was quite an achievement in itself. She had a sticky purple substance leaking from her nose. Purple blood? Cool. Saves me having to take it myself.

I took some on my fingers to let the suit do its thing. Interfacing. Analyzing. Computing. I looked at some of the results as they appeared on my HUD. Funny. Same DNA structure than us earthly creatures. And about half the amino-acids are comparable to a human's. Along with the general look of her, and what I scanned of her internal body structure, I nearly thought for a moment that I was standing in front of _homo sapiens'_ lost cousin. But as far as I knew, she certainly didn't came from Earth, and the remaining differences were just too great for her to simply be some kind of genetic experiment. So I had to accept the fact that converging evolution was not only the dream of a lunatic, although I had to suspend my disbelief to do so. And believe me, doing so when half of your brain is occupied by room-temp superconducting material that is part of a synthetic neural network capable of treating information faster than any brain made of flesh is _hard_. And I'm just stating a fact.

Something else came up on the scan. Relatively large amounts of… Element zero? Wasn't this shit highly toxic? Then why the hell was she literally laced with the stuff? Or… Hah. Mass effect fields… The way she attacked me at first… The blue aura… Yeah. ANALYZIS COMPLETE indeed, SECOND. She could literally move stuff with her mind. Come to think of it, that also explained her getup. Partly. She didn't really need armor if she could just soak up projectiles by creating mass effect fields to complement her shields. But that still didn't explain why it was so… Leathery and form fitting. **(A/N: think of the asari commandos of ME1. Hawt.)** Anyway. That last information was definitely something that took my attention. I could already feel SECOND running scenarios about the probable fighting capabilities given by such an ability in the background of my mind. And the prospects were not good for me. Good thing I got lucky at our little first encounter.

* * *

><p>Now Tleilax couldn't tell if he should be feeling scared or pissed off. In less than a standard day, he took control of an alien colony on behalf of the Hierarchy with little to no trouble, and THEN he lost more than ten percent of his troops and some of his armor to an enemy whose abilities seemed supernatural and to which they had caused no casualty so far. And to add insult to injury, all the reports spoke about ONE of them. There have never been more than that sighted at once, and yet the mayhem caused was beyond comprehension. This… Whatever… If only it only had its cloaking ability, it wouldn't be so much trouble. But it seemed that it always knew where all its foes were. That I could change position extremely fast. That despite having what seemed like a subpar shield, it could soak up bullets like a sponge and not go down. And that it had reaction times that were <em>very<em> short. Not to mention that it appeared as if some of his men had been literally _crushed_ with bare hands. Not even krogans could do that to a turian.

And then, he learned that Vasira had disappeared without a trace after that last incident. His one and only chance to establish quickly a successful communication between them and these aliens vanishing without even having been helpful, despite successfully gaining their language.

Spirits.

And to top it all off, now his men were nervous, discussing orders about patrolling the area and not wanting to move in groups of anything less than thirty men. They were scared. Scared turians. It was the first time Tleilax had seen such a thing. But he couldn't really blame them, when it seemed that they reduced to the role of preys in some kind of hunting game.

He had to call reinforcements. It certainly signified the end of his rise in the Hierarchy, but at this moment he couldn't care less. Not to mention he owed it to his men, if only for the morale boost of knowing that someone was actually _doing_ something about the situation.

He had to call in the cabals.

* * *

><p>Finally I'm reaching Snyder's position with my captive, who still hadn't regained consciousness. I'm still a hundred meters from him when he calls me on the radio.<p>

"Uh… Alcatraz, you spoke about an alien captive right?"

Hah. Ican feel him all confused already.

"Affirmative." He'll just have to see for himself.

I finally reach the hideout, and I lay her against a tree, still unconscious.

Even through his helmet, I can feel Snyder trying to get a good look at her in the obscurity. When he realizes the "alien-ness" of our friend, I can see the surprise in his body language. Obviously he cannot believe his eyes. I don't blame him. I had a hard time myself, and I see the full spectrum. He recovered from the shock after a few long seconds and looked at me.

"So… Uh… What do we do about that?"

"Easy enough. We're here to get intel, right? This is our intel source. Open a channel to Williams, I'm going to interrogate."

Soon after, general Williams had the shock of his life when he saw the images Snyder was transmitting back with his helmet's cam.

"Alcatraz, you are sure you can handle this? This is a High Value Target. We need to evacuate it… Her… whatever to a proper facility."

"And don't I know it, general. But if you send a ship now, I doubt it's cloaking systems will be useful during atmospheric reentry and it'll be detected. So unless you want to cut this mission short, we'll have to do it here."

"You're right. Proceed when ready, but please try to keep her intact. We can't afford to waste an occasion like this. Be rough if necessary, but not too much. Snyder will monitor the interrogation and we will remain in radio contact throughout. Over."

This was going to be interesting.

* * *

><p>Vasira was slowly regaining her senses, but everything was still blurry. She could feel water trickling on her head. It must have been what had woken her up… How did she get into that situation? She couldn't remember… Ah yes. The call from Tleilax… The new alien species on some Goddess-forsaken colony…The forced meld… And then the attack. And the Thing in the alley.<p>

That Thing. From what she was slowly remembering, she attacked it with her biotics successfully, but then it… Broke out of stasis? Was that even possible? Even krogans couldn't do that. There had to be an explanation.

She felt her hands tied in her back.

And her legs too.

Slowly she opened her eyes. It was still nightime and she couldn't make out much in the dark. But she still noticed the imposing figure standing in front of her.

It was the Thing.

For a moment, it didn't do anything. It just stood there, contemplating her getting back to her senses, and then it intoned in the human's language.

"Enough. She's awake."

Just then, she noticed the human that was standing beside her pouring water on her face, likely to wake her up. This one wore a more standard looking suit like those she saw at the colony, with the helmet and a sealed faceplate, so she couldn't see anything of her captor's faces.

But the Thing's voice got her startled. Not only because it was devoid of any emotion, but because it felt completely synthetic, like something coming out of a cheap speech synthesizer. And other than that, the Thing as a whole exuded menace. She couldn't put her finger on it. Perhaps it was a combination of the faceless mask with a red visor, and the fact that It looked like a skinned creature with all the bundles of muscles visible and the overall dark color, with what looked like a metallic skeleton poking here and there.

But no. Despite the alienness of this Thing, it wasn't really its appearance or the fact that she was helpless and at its mercy that was causing this feeling. It was a gut instinct. Something was very _wrong_ about it.

It knelt in front of her, observing her silently, almost like it was scanning her. What was that Thing, for Goddess-sake?

It spoke in its emotionless voice.

"Now that I have your attention, we may start talking. There are obviously a lot of questions that need to be answered, but first things first. Let's start with the presentations, shall we? I take it you're already acquainted with humans, so let's add some reciprocity to that. Who and what are you?"

It would have sounded casual if it wasn't that emotionless.

She tried sarcasm.

"And you think I would answer your questions just like that? "

"Oh, I think you will, because you won't have much choice in the matter. I already know from our brief encounter back in the colony that, much like humans, you are sensitive to pain. I scanned you body. There are approximately 220 bones in it. If you are cooperative you will have as many when we are finished. You will yield eventually anyway, so why not skip the unpleasant part and get straight to the part where you answer my questions? This will benefit the both of us. Oh, and don't think you can rely on your telekinetic abilities to pull yourself out of your situation. I am currently monitoring you, and if I feel the slightest energy buildup, I will be forced to crush one of your limbs."

She considered her situation for a moment. The Thing was right. She was trapped. Even if she was a Spectre and a trained commando, she knew that noone was immune to torture, and that she was no exception. Besides, she didn't owe the turians anything in particular. She was here as a personal favor, not to help the Hierarchy bring another race under its "benevolent" domination. Finally she made her decision.

"Alright, I cooperate. And not just because of your threats, but because personally I don't approve what the turians are trying to do here. In fact, by helping you, I would just be doing my job."

It seemed to consider her answer for a moment, then said:

"…And that job would be?..."

"To protect galactic stability at any cost. And mind you, this whole thing is not in the definition of galactic stability."

"Galactic stability. Just that. Alright… We'll come back to this later. Right now, I'm more interested in knowing who and what you are, and just how in hell do you speak English. Because as far as I know, you arrived her only a few hours ago. One doesn't learn a language so fast."

"My name is Vasira Lallis, I'm an asari, that's the name of my species. And no, one CAN learn a language that fast. At least, for my species it's easy, when you can read minds."

"Read minds huh? And what am I thinking right now?"

"It doesn't work that way… It's a special ability my people can use to link minds with any sentient species. We evolved that way."

The Thing stopped talking for a moment as it processed this information. It seemed almost… Incredulous? Hard to tell with the mask.

"Alright, I'll accept that for now. Now if you could explain just who your pals are and why they decided to attack on sight a species they have just encountered."

"They're turians. One of the major species making up the galactic society. I don't know all the details, but as far as I know, they caught some of your ships doing something illegal according to council law and they attacked them. After that, I can only guess, but it seems to me that they are trying to take advantage of the situation. Noone else but the Turian Hierarchy knows what is happening in this sector of space."

"So they are here for conquest. Nice way to welcome the newcomers."

"Like I said, noone knows what they are up to here. If word of this came to the Council then…"

"Council?"

"Oh, right. The Council is the governing body of the galactic community, located on the Citadel. It's a multi-species government composed of representatives of the three major races: the turians, the asari, and the salarians."

"Just how many races are there in this galactic society of yours?"

"They are not all represented on the Citadel, but at least a dozen."

"Right. So if this Council knew what was happening here, what would they do?"

"Likely, they would mediate an end to hostilities and punish the turians for their recklessness. And then, they would probably invite your people on the galactic stage."

"How lovely." The Thing then faced the human that was standing here, likely transmitting the whole exchange with his helmet camera. "Did you receive all this general Williams?"

"Yes I did, Alcatraz", came an other voice. "We will review all this information. For now, consider your prisoner your highest priority. Likely, we will cut your mission short and evacuate you and your prisoner. She must be brought for proper interrogation at Alliance Command at all cost, Alcatraz, I trust you to handle this. Williams out." The radio cut off.

"Well", the Thing that she now knew was called Alcatraz turned to her, "it seems that I've been reassigned to babysit you."

* * *

><p>"You WHAT?" Came the booming voice of general Avernus over the radio. "Let it be clear, centurion Tleilax. You were ordered to secure these aliens' colony and to do your possible to retrieve valuable intel as fast as possible so that the next phase of this operation can begin, and not only did you fail in securing the colony, but you lost more than ten percent of your men in the process?"<p>

"That's not the entire…"

"And then", interrupted Avernus, "you thought that it was a good idea to call help from a council agent? Have you any idea of what OPSEC means? The council must NOT, I repeat NOT learn about this until the situation is resolved!"

"I'm aware of that sir but…"

"And to top it all, your asari spectre has been kidnapped by those aliens, so now you are calling for help. That's just brilliant. Really. You know, when this whole mess has been cleaned up, you may find yourself on permanent assignment on peacekeeping duties on Tuchanka. That is, if I feel merciful."

Tleilax winced. Tuchanka was certainly the worst assignment any turian could hope.

"Anyway, we still have a problem on our hands, don't we? I'll send a cabal, expect them within a standard day. You are to cooperate with them by any means possible."

"Understood general Arterius."

"Oh, and one more thing. It is of high priority for the hierarchy that your asari spectre must not get off this planet alive. Am I making myself clear, centurion?"

"…crystal clear, general."


End file.
